Team Indie

Imagine, if you will, your favorite characters in a single game – but it’s not a mascot fighter à la Smash Bros. or any other in the genre. They’re not here to duke it out. Instead, all were pulled from different games, all bring their own skills to the table, and they have a common goal to work towards. But just what genre could that be? An FPS? A platformer with branching storylines? Something that uses each character’s genre of predilection in a gameplay roulette?

Well, today’s game provides one answer. A creation of Brightside Games released on October 8th, 2014, Team Indie sees multiple heroes of indie gaming coming to the rescue of a powerless kitten. True to the scene, the genre is... a puzzle platformer. Can’t say I haven’t played my fair share of those by now. The other notable detail here is that today’s title was delisted from Steam, at the publisher’s request. You can’t buy it, and it won’t come up on searches on the platform. I only have access to the page because I had this game patiently waiting in my collection ever since I obtained it in the Humble Freedom Bundle, purchased in February 2017. It’s also not the first delisted title I cover; in fact, it’s the third this year.

Games get delisted for all kinds of reasons ranging from being too large a source of stress for their creator(s) to basic issues pertaining to rights. I scoured the Internet to find the reason as to why Team Indie was delisted, but I’ve come empty-handed. For now, at least, the mystery remains. My guess is that it boils down to a rights issue, owing to the crossover nature of this title.

Don’t see this review as an article on something you might want to purchase, since it’s not possible. Today, I feel more like a museum curator, observing something that used to be accessible, but now can only be discussed in the past tense. And in an age where digital products get pulled at their owners' whims, preservation of that kind can be very important - so I feel a duty to at least talk about this one, "can't buy it" be damned.

Green-eyed monster cat

Jealous cat much?

A gamer with some hacking skills lives with her old cat Oskar. One day, she receives a mysterious package, which turns out to be a kitten named Marvin! The kitty has a strange gear-shaped pendant around his neck. Oskar, angered by the younger feline’s presence, swipes and snaps the pendant. This happened as Marvin stood close to the computer, and... inexplicably, the kitty was teleported into a video game.

Gotta love how the intro has tense music, strobe effects, like it’s the most intense story ever... Then we jump to the title screen and the music is all cute and mellow. The whiplash hurts!

Such a cute kitty, too.

Without any real attack options, the poor cat would be easy pickings for the various dangers lurking about, but the gamer/hacker has come up with an idea to rescue him: Namely, to pick various indie heroes from other games and pull them in to help. Marvin must rely on the skillsets of other characters to make it safely out... that is, unless Oskar has other nasty tricks planned...

We have no less than nine additional heroes lending a hand. In order of appearance:

• CommanderVideo from the BIT.TRIP series (I swear, this guy pops up in every indie crossover), whose ability is to run nonstop;

• J. Jitters from The Great Jitters: Pudding Panic, whose skill is to create temporary platforms in midair;

• Clunk from Awesomenauts, who can charge up shots and destroy enemies and crates;

• Dustgirl from Dustforce, who can double jump, wall jump, cling to walls and ceilings if there are leaves to clean up there, and her special ability when picking up a pellet is to destroy all the enemies on the screen;

• Tim from Braid, who keeps the time-rewinding talent he displayed in his own title;

• Super Crate Box Guy from Super Crate Box, who brings katanas and miniguns to the fight, yes really;

• Black Fluff Ball from Badland, which flies and can carry the other characters around;

• Tiny from Tiny & Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers, who uses his Tool to pull items towards him, carry them around, stack them, and so on;

• And Mi from Knytt Underground, who can climb walls in her regular form, or turn into a ball to jump around.

Lead the way, Jitters!

Time shenanigans

The main draw of this game is to use these different skills to carry Marvin through the stages and back to the real world. But how can you have them cooperate? This is a single-player title! The answer is the second draw of this game, and one of the best ideas I’ve seen in a puzzle platformer.

You better hope you have the right timing to
jump on Jitters' platforms as CommanderVideo.

As Marvin, when you hit a sigil showing a character, you switch to that character and use their skill set. Then, if that character reaches another sigil, you swap to that other character and move on. When an indie character reaches a golden sigil of Marvin’s head, time rewinds back to where Marvin currently stands. The kitty goes through the stage... while your previous run-through of the stage plays, with the characters repeating the exact same actions you did just moments prior. This is how, as an example, you can create platforms with J. Jitters, then jump on them as Marvin or as another hero to reach higher ledges. Most of the time, though, your indie allies will simply clear the way for Marvin to pass through.

Go, Dustgirl! Destroy those enemies to let Marvin through!

This is just a taste of what to expect with
the first boss of the game.

On one hand, this is brilliant and opens the way to a lot of inventive puzzles. On the other, this does mean you have to go through each stage more than once. If you need one hero to go through with their skill first, paving the way for a second hero afterwards, and then Marvin, that means going three times through. This also opens a few issues when playing as Marvin: While you figured out what to do with the other character(s), you wait. And when it’s time to act, you better remember what you did previously. Even better, you better make sure you planned for Marvin’s inclusion. Set a platform too high with Jitters? Whoops!

It's weird that of all 10 playable characters here,
only two have proper offensive abilities.

There’s also the issue of the time you lose while your other playthroughs do the work, but for that, you can press a key (F originally) to speed time up and get going. You’ll still wait some (and Marvin cannot perform any other actions while time is sped up), but it’s less bad. Also of note is that if you screw up with a character, you can press a key (X originally) to undo your current run back to the last character swap.

And make no mistake, the game doesn’t become easy either with an entire hero team at your side. A lot of the game past this point involves both solving clever puzzles and precise platforming – not just when it’s the kitty’s turn, either.

Though the kitty's runs aren't exactly
a cakewalk, either.

Oskar can code

Dustgirl Trophy Get!

The game includes a handful of extra challenges if you’re willing to put in the effort. Most stages include special treasures to pick up as Marvin. There’s anywhere from one to three, and all of them are related to one hero assisting in this stage, at 10 per hero. That makes a grand total of 90 treasures to grab, with one Steam achievement for each, as well as extra achievements for completing each hero’s collection. You can access the room where the treasures are kept from the map screen.

Generally, many red stones will appear after
you've picked up the necessary blue stones.

Not enough? You can also try collecting every precious stone in every stage. Marvin’s are red, while the other heroes’ are a pale grey/blue. The catch? Some of these stones will appear only after a certain point while playing as a hero. If you want to catch everything, you’ll have to be quick.

Even if you stick to taking Marvin across the 50 stages, you’re going to meet some pushback. Oskar, the older cat, learned coding from watching his owner and decided to insert himself in boss form. Bosses here are, just like the rest of the game, a puzzle/platform mix. The first is impressive alright, with a giant, monstrous Oskar chasing down the indie heroes as they pave a safe path for Marvin away from the enemies, the spikes and the giant cat’s frickin' eye beams.

Yipes!

It was about time this evil cat (or, at least, its
game avatar) got the beating he deserves.

The second fight is an upwards climb with the help of Dustgirl, Clunk, Jitters and Super Crate Box Guy, while another avatar of Oskar pounces from the lava below. It’s only on the third and final boss battle that we fight back against the jealous cat. Most heroes make a triumphant return here, with damage dealt thanks to Clunk and Super Crate Box Guy. ...We’d think it matters, but just like the other bosses, all we need to do is reach the goal. At the end of the fight, Marvin speaks to Oskar about a revelation: The kitten was always a video game character, and destroying the necklace simply brought him back home!

As for why he was outside the game or how he can be a game character without any real skills... those questions will be left unanswered. Yep, that’s all!

Final thoughts

Tim's own time shenanigans can change how
hazards move in a stage.

Stronger in concept than in execution, Team Indie is one of the more unique puzzle platformers I’ve seen. Its crossover nature alone makes it an interesting curiosity. It pulls characters from indie games not big enough to be known by all (the most famous of them being CommanderVideo), but still with a bit of reputation. Brightside Games, themselves based in Berlin, picked heroes by studios from the US, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, and Sweden. It’s a tough balancing act to make a game with so many playable folks, especially in making sure they’re all represented properly, contribute to the platforming, and display the exact skills they have in their home titles.

The tough part with Black Fluff Ball is that when it starts
flying, it can only go in one direction, and can only change
direction by landing first.

It's also to their detriment that the game combines multiple playstyles into its puzzles, as every character doesn’t get to shine quite as much as they could. It makes sense, this isn’t their game, it’s Marvin’s. Though as a result, the heroes’ individual puzzles come across as light or simple in comparison to what they may have faced in their home titles. Which... I can excuse, seeing as there’s 9 of them to juggle, but it does become somewhat noticeable.

On the plus side, the featured heroes's presence
may interest you in checking out their games.

Really, the interest here is in seeing these guys cooperate. The mechanic allowing us to progress alongside our previous runs is a fantastic idea. I wished other games did this. In my opinion, it makes sense for the sake of name recognition to have the nine indie heroes here, as it’s like free advertisement for them, but I still think it may be the reason why the game is no longer for sale on Steam. That said, having parodies or mimics of those characters wouldn’t have had the same reach.

The game looks fine, and the music isn’t much to write home about. Difficulty-wise, I do like the very steady increase in difficulty, not only do we get more heroes as time goes on (with some joining the party after the first or second boss only), but the difficulty of the puzzles increases fairly. For those interested, the extra challenge of finding every hero’s 10 treasures can prove quite challenging, and there’s also the occasional bonus stage to try out. So long as you don’t mind going through every stage technically more than once, first as the indie hero(es), then as the kitty.

Shoot at them all! You need to get to the
pressure panels they're guarding.

Brightside Games only has one game currently for purchase on the platform: Zeit². It’s kinda sad that I can’t say “Go buy Team Indie”. That said, if it’s been sitting unplayed in your Steam collection for too long, by all means, check it out. It’s always strange for me to cover games that are no longer available for purchase, but it’s as I said – today, I felt more like a museum curator. Even those "Gone Games" deserve some recognition or to be talked about, in my opinion.